Raymond Henry Muller sentenced to life for murdering musician

Article content

Cédric Gagnon, the musician who was murdered by Raymond Henry Muller, was remembered at the Montreal courthouse on Thursday by loved ones as a person who brought joy to the lives of many before he was killed in the most brutal way imaginable.

Article content

Statements were read into the court record before Superior Court Justice Lyne Décarie formally sentenced Muller to the life sentence he automatically received last week when a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder.

Décarie also had to sentence Muller, 54, for causing an indignity to Gagnon’s body. After he killed the victim, on July 4, 2018, by striking Gagnon on the forehead with a bass guitar a few times, he dragged the body into the bathroom in Muller’s apartment and dismembered it in the bathtub. The body parts were kept in a fridge and freezer before Muller dumped them in trash bins near the apartment in Mile End.

The judge agreed with prosecutor Marie-Claude Bourassa’s recommendation that Muller be sentenced to the maximum of five years for what he did to Gagnon’s body.

Article content

“The significance of this charge is not the ultimate penalty, which is overshadowed by the sentence of life imprisonment. It is significant, however, in ensuring forever that Mr. Muller will be remembered not only for the murder of Cédric Gagnon but also for his cold and calculated attempt to hide his heinous crime by a further heinous act, one that demonstrates an attitude totally opposite to the sensitivities of civil law.” Decarie said.

Some of the people who delivered victim-impact statements before the court lamented how they have no real way to mourn their loss because Gagnon’s remains have never been recovered. Gagnon was reported missing weeks after he was killed, and the Montreal police only realized he was a homicide victim on Aug. 30, 2018, when Muller tried to kill himself.

Article content

David Gagnon, the victim’s brother, said he cries at least once a week and “can’t work anymore.”

“I lost my best friend, my guitar mentor, my left wing at hockey, but mostly I lost my little brother. When we were young, I would babysit him. I would protect him and we would always be together,” Gagnon said.

“Cedric was a loving person. He had many friends who loved him. He would light a light with his joy of life and his rock and roll attitude. He would always be ready to have fun and to bring out his guitar from him. I miss that very much.”

A friend of Gagnon said his favorite song was Psycho Killer, a 1977 hit by Talking Heads, whose lyrics take on the perspective of a deranged murderer. She added that “the irony of this does not escape me.”

Article content

Muller’s behavior was described as very strange by witnesses who testified during his two trials. The first one ended in a mistrial last year after a different jury was unable to reach a consensus on a verdict.

Caroline Garon and Sean Jones, two musicians who played with Gagnon in the band Pirates!, said the homicide has made their lives difficult ever since. Both testified during the trial and said Thursday that Gagnon’s death and the media attention that followed the gross crime altered their lives significantly.

Garon said that after Muller’s first trial ended in a mistrial, she feared he might be acquitted in his second trial. She said she prepared her will for her because she feared the worst if Muller were to be released from detention.

“A lot of people avoid me because they are afraid of coming to the Rock Hotel (the name of the apartment where Muller killed Gagnon and where musicians would often practice together) or just hanging out. They make a lot of jokes — a lot of stupid, bad jokes about what they think could happen,” Garon said. “They don’t understand that we’re all victims as much as Cédric. We’re all victims too in this and nothing will be the same again.”

[email protected]